A Mother in Motion

To Speak or Not to Speak of Love

2011-05-17T06:25:00.000-07:00

I am a member of Toastmasters International, a public speaking and leadership organization. My local club is here on Orcas Island, and meets just a few blocks from my home. I am scheduled to give a presentation this evening. Do I feel ready? Yes and no.

My chosen topic is: How to Inspire Community Education & Healing through Local Projects. My title: Learning To Make A Difference.

My lesson outline for this presentation is "Get To The Point." We have a manual of skill building presentations that we follow, and this is my third one. I accumulated many years of experience in public speaking before I was 33. I took a break for some years when I started my academic education, and then my family, in the 1990 - 1997 years. However, when my daughter, Willow, was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 19 months, I found myself being catapulted into involvement with a small non-profit organization, assisting families with the transition period of early onset diabetes. It got me back in the public eye and serving in a community setting. This enabled me to become more comfortable in positions where I acted as a liaison between parents and their child's medical and nutritional team. This led to coordinating workshops and outreach seminars.

Interspersed in the above activities, there was the natural facilitation of little teachable moments between a parent and child, or between a child and siblings. Sometimes this included grand parents, too. Learning to navigate the routines of diabetes management without over-managing one's life has a unique learning curve for families. As the opportunities rolled into my life, they gave me the chance to put into practice what I had been learning as a hands-on, homeschooling parent. I began blending curiosity from lived experience, with what I had studied over the years in creating educational environments anywhere: from small homes to cultural centers to outdoor settings. And it continues to this day.

But tonight I wanted to say something about our potential freedom from the conditioning of our lives around schooling itself. I'm going to emphasize trust in the process of unlearning limitations and reintegrating the various forms of sensory learning that anchor meaningful knowledge. We live in an action-based culture. The conventional model of schooling emphasizes by-rote training and competition among our peers. What if we shifted our usual emphasis toward the co-creation of a kinder, deeper connection in learning? What is our educational business as a community? This is what I want to address tonight, in what I believe will be a series of presentations, developing the topic and interest further.

I have postponed my yoga studio cleaning and yoga class, to stay home with my daughter, who is in the midst of an illness. I will miss my mom-to-mom Bible study group today. There may be a chance to still attend a three hour board education meeting between 1 and 4pm this afternoon.

First, though, I need to reset my internal harmony thermostat. My 16 year old son has declared his desire for independent decision-making. He walked out of my home on Mother's day, and did not communicate with me face to face until yesterday. He was safely parked at his dad's, where he has a detached bedroom in which to hermit-ize himself as needed. This is a new experience for us both. In one chamber of my heart, the clear one, I applaud his authentic need to discover who he is in his own way. He is a remarkable person, and student, who deserves a sacred initiation into the adult responsibilities he is taking on in our society. A little bug on my heart says he doesn't need to find anyone to blame for this intrinsic need, though he started to go there. I do trust his decision. I just wanted to be informed in a way that wasn't hurtful. I appreciate his apology on the matter.

Another chamber of my heart is open to new learning. What is next in this changing relationship with my firstborn son? In the medicine wheel tradition of the First Nation Peoples, a spirituality that embraces our physical, four chambered heart, places the seat of our original medicine here. The chamber of my heart that represents strength knows that all will be well, but the fullness of another chamber is spilling over alligator tears. How fast the turnings of life occur!

Did I mention that my daughter, Willow, came down with a raging fever last night? She is 14 this month, and does 99% of her diabetes routine on her own. She is rarely ill, but when it hits like it did last night, she really struggles with surrender. Gee, I wonder if this is reflective of anyone I know right now? Sitting at my keyboard, tasting a life changing moment through salty tears, I am wondering if I will have the passion and clarity I need for my presentation later. I know I can postpone until the next meeting, and perhaps I will feel fuller for the delay? I am willing to look at that. Time has a way of chewing up our best laid plans and spitting out a whole new scenario.

My son told me yesterday that he perceived me as trying to put him in boxes. When I asked for an example, he didn't have one. Maybe a situation will emerge for both of us to use in the learning process. What I see at the moment is a young man who is getting inundated by a culture that puts people in boxes. Since "mother" so clearly represents the universe of experience when we are young, I must now be the "cause" of his angst. Well, my son, kick away the sides of those boxes with all the determination you feel. When you have discovered your path and your gifts, in your way, I will celebrate in my heart...the same heart that you used to listen to when you were growing inside and nursing at my breast. I trusted my heart to love you as you are. I must trust your heart to remember me in a kinder, truer light.

I, too, have gifts to develop and share. May we both enjoy our new found freedoms, and meet again in the field of dreams, manifested as a legacy of life long learning. Love is forever and unconditional. This I know.

No Time To Work for $$

2011-04-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

How did I do this to myself? Since I have started taking more action on my dreams, I've begun to notice when something I am doing is either increasing my energy or depleting it. A month ago, I came home from my sabbatical, to two full grocery bags full of mail. I am still not through all of it. The suggestion of a friend in BC was," get a paper shredder!"

All I wanted to do was fall in love with my life again, and the avalanche of unprocessed paperwork is now heavier than my former baggage. I DID fall in love with my life, now that I know my life is not about paperwork, finished or not. I have always been ill equipped to work for money on its own merit. Frankly, it has none. No matter how many times I plant a $1.00 bill in my garden, it never grows into anything but interesting compost.

In the local realm of balanced exchange, for example, I can make a yummy meal in exchange for a massage. My personal delight in-kind energy exchange is many times more than when I simply hand over pieces of paper that say "In God We Trust." I do trust in God, way more than all the paper and coin currency combined. In practical terms, though, I have elected to share a summer market booth with a non-profit entity, offering my gifts as an artist in the realm of body art. This is essentially a long term fundraiser. But it has a totally different feel than being a sole owner of a booth, which is what I did for 6 years at full personal expense. This change happened in the following way:

I have had no new income for 4 months, due to taking a health break, restructuring my business, and implementing changes to my own website. While transitioning the larger focus of my work into communications consulting, as well as designing and coordinating an educational program to deliver locally, a delay in my tax refund didn't permit me to purchase this season's booth slot. This is the first year I didn't do my own taxes, even though they were ready to do in January. I did my part ahead. I had planned well enough, or so I thought. Only this week is it all being signed and sent in to the IRS. I believe in being straightforward and keeping life simple. I have my doubts about the IRS.

For a few months I was congratulating myself for letting go of my pattern of doing "everything" concerning my business myself. There was immediate relief at the decision to hire a bookkeeper and an accountant. However, the stress of not having it done before now made for an interesting discipline in trusting my decision. I was tempted, but did not allow myself, to yank the reins of tax filing back into my own corral. Since the funds were not going to be available in time to meet my booth payment deadline, or mortgage for that matter, what could I do? Regroup. Revisit my intention for what my particular booth has been moving toward and allow something new to come to me. It was only after I surrendered "the way I have been doing it" that I realized I could still accomplish my goal by joining up with a non-profit. I've done short-term fund raising why not something long term? I can provide a weekly presence at the market, like before. We split the donations and we both achieve consistent exposure for the programs we are doing together. I like it.

The body art I do provides a family activity that enables people to linger at the market. Everything else offered is either awesome homegrown foods or handcrafted items for sale. Whether enjoying the body art activity itself, or watching a child get a face painting, people are connecting to each other at the booth. They are sharing information about potential events, school issues, places to eat, exchanging recipes or business cards and, occasionally, nursing a baby while another child is reading a book, waiting his or her turn. This is the life I envisioned sharing with my kids. Not the "I gotta work so you can eat" syndrome. I am awful at working at something I do not enjoy, so that someday, when the slave-driving gods are not cracking their whips, I can have a moment of fun. Hopefully without falling asleep and missing it entirely. Too many years running my own businesses and being able to have more control of my schedule has meant an availability to my children that defies the concept of "norm" in practice in my culture. Did I mention that I am learning how to pace myself and stop the workaholic tendencies? Work is meaningful to me, as it relates to a holistic life.

My own children have been learning to work in the art of local commerce these last several years. Initially home schooled in the early years, they are now in various school programs and doing exceptionally well in all areas. They have observed and participated in different aspects of the market booth experience all along: Setting up. Tearing down. Coordinating the flow of kids and reading stories aloud. Co-designing the marketing materials. Go-fering for my lunch or scouting the market for fresh produce to take home when our day is done. Or apprenticing, as one of my daughters has been doing, establishing her own style and clientele.

When my tush is planted on a stool and a person's chin is in one hand while the other is flourishing some color on a cheek or an arm, I am aware of one thing only: The moment of listening. If I'm paying attention, then I'm listening to a dream offered by the person in front of me. I am not calculating how much money I have to make that day or what it costs to purchase new supplies. Rather, an artful meditation is unfolding. My hands respond to the color and design requests of a child who is exploring another side of life. My ears hear the sounds of the market around me, but my heart is engaged in a practice, if you will. It is the practice of being present in the now.

When I consult with new people on their marketing for their business, an often missing element is that they have little experience with face to face commerce besides earning money from a job and spending money at a mall. Without a real, felt experience of being in some aspect of community services exchange, they can only guess at how to meet the needs of future clients or customers. Too much of our modern push for income is based on selling to people you will likely never meet, assuming what people might want or playing on common impulses mistaken as needs.

I have a prayer and meditation discipline, and it doesn't look like what is traditional or expected. I do have little space at home, to sit quietly and OM at will. My stack of spiritual books is close by. I cherish the time and space this represents. But anxieties about the economic transformations of the present still find me in my meditation space. However, when I am listening and engaged in art, there is no thought or impulse to make money. There is no thought to limit my life currency to the realm of paper currency. There are conversations to be paying attention to in my community. There are meals to make with my children. There are books to write, and gardens to create. With learning environments to design, and dogs to walk, and trees to plant, and musical instruments to play, and poems to compose, and friends to go for walks with, and sunsets and sunrises to catch, I am already rich.

I have lost all ability to translate my time and value to my family and community life into money. All I can imagine today is the work of my hands, across the span of my life, where money has passed and never stayed. What remains is the feel of fresh bread dough, and soil under my nails, and the handmade life I am living is as real as forever, and "love made visible". I understand money has its place. I suspect I will be responsible for a great amount of it before long. I just wanted to savor this moment when I know, beyond any doubt, again...that money will only ever be my willing servant and never my master.

The Gift of a Year

2011-03-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

Today is the 100th anniversary of a day celebrating women. I have just arrived home from a three month sabbatical, which I have decided will, in some ways, extend for the year, ending on December 17, 2011 (My birthday).

On the physical level, I am addressing an adrenal exhaustion and the layers of healing associated with that. I found a wonderful Naturopathic physician to consult with named Rachel Sheehan. I discovered her serendipitously, toward the end of my three month stay in Hawaii. Having tried on my own to rest and supplement nutritionally,and making a little progress, I discovered I wasn't being as realistic and compassionate about the recovery side of things, until Rachel started working with me. She uses a variety of modalities, including some which address emotional clearing as well, and this is proving a perfect combination for moving forward in my gift of a year.

My focus now is on healing and writing into what I'm ready to know, and love, about my life as it has lived me. I have chosen a working title: Embracing Maya, A Woman's Journey into Awakening. Maya is most clearly associated with traditional Eastern spiritual teachings on the concept of illusion and the play of duality in human belief. The term first showed up in my life in 1993, when I was reading the Autobiography of a Yogi. I wish I could tell you something specific about what I remember about it from that time. I recall only that I read it before bed, and had amazing dreams of assimilation, but nothing stands out on its own; just the lingering impression that it became an influence in how I began to perceive things. In all honesty, I was juggling my first semester of college as a reentry student at 33, and I was still involved in ongoing therapy, having catapulted myself out of the religion of my upbringing.

Paramahansa Yogananda's book was the first break away material I read then, leading me to so much other metaphysical reading that eventually, I was drawn to rediscover the concept of Maya because of personal experiences that defied logic. I will relate these over time. Part of my recent sabbatical period was spent with the Polestar intentional community in Pahoa, HI. My role there was to assist in the gardens and the kitchen, but I found the daily meditations, energization and yoga sessions, based on Paramahansa Yogananda's writings, to be especially helpful for recalling the original introduction to the beginning of my spiritual discipline and this journey.

I learn best by the immersion method of study. Being in Hawaii was the perfect setting to be introduced to traditional Huna teachings and I certainly feel an affinity with the ones I know. There will be no claim of expert knowledge here. First hand experience and personal perceptions are really all I can speak to. As I mature, so does my understanding.

Before I sign off for today, I want to express gratitude to my four children, for their willingness and support, to see me claim this pivotal time for myself. And for their dad, my ex-husband, for taking on the role of a full-time father for three months, with all that this brought into his relationship to our children.

I owe a great debt to a business partner who understood the necessity for me to go into retreat and who has consistently stood by as a brother in need.

Surrendering

2011-03-08T08:39:00.000-08:00

(For Annette)

He came through you
To light a torch of passion in this life.

The body shudder of his birth, just one
Of many surrenders you would make for this son.

Too soon, for a mother's soul,
He leaped across the chasm of the extraordinary,

Surrendering his young man's body,
Touched as only a mother's sacred hands would know.

Such great hearts move on, dear sister, ever slipping
Their beating life into fields of play and light.

In the endless expanse of divine grace,
May you taste joy in a different surrender;

And, when you notice the sunlight, dancing itself
On rain-soaked leaves, remember,

The music he hears now
First lived in you.

This is true.

The Word is Out

2009-09-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

The alphabet is on the table
definitely a puzzle of my heart
so much more than scrabble
a game of love is open
I've told my friends!
the word is out...

I am ready to be found
a stroke of color in the cosmic hand
a symbol of sacred devotion
light, sound, and vibration
made visible in the work of love
through mundane and spiritual pursuits;
a koan, a poem, a note of grace,
a laugh, and the taste of tears
when the nothing allows the something to emerge.

My hands know it all
and more often than not
it manifests exactly as it is.
The word is out.

Teasing with Curious Looks

2009-09-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

Sleep sweeps my soul
into journeys of knowing
all is well

my heart swells
in expansion
as my children
like saplings, stretch deeper
and higher
pulling, reaching, soaking

in sunlight, and moonlight
and new light, in general
teasing with curious looks
and breathing earth into love
again.

I am learning
a present and future teacher
with the children
of Light.

A Month of Miracles

2009-05-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

I am at the threshold of moving into my first-time home purchase. This has been a dream in progress since 2003, before my ex-husband's felony trial and conviction. Before a joint bankruptcy. Before I realized I was on a slippery slope to divorce and 4.5 years of legal process. And definitely before the 12 re-locations through temporary housing we experienced between 2005 and now.

Yesterday, I spent 4 peaceful hours tending to our new garden beds. My 12 year old son, Liam, met me in the garden to help with watering. While he was stooped over a few baby plants he took a pause from our conversation and looked around, as if seeing the place for the first time. Then he said, "Thank you mama, for making us a home here." He returned to his watering as if there was only that moment in time. I managed to say, "You are very welcome" without weeping or getting mushy. I felt like I could drop to my knees in gratitude for the promise I was keeping alive for my children.

It would be unfair to say that this home in progress was only for my children. It represents so many things to me: a place to call my own, a foundation for what is yet to come into our lives, a chance to be in a program with other families to improve housing options on our island, and a natural desire to nest with my children in a more permanent way once again.

Our new home represents a conclusion to a cycle of struggle and disorientation. Those who have experienced homelessness understand the edginess of life at the margin of despair. The pattern of settling for less than is truly required has been interrupted. And this is a good thing.

Despite the hardships of the last few years, things tended to work out favorably for us, if I stayed aware.

The Magdalen Visit's a Mother

2009-04-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

In dreams of the
Magdalen, I sing of doubt,
misunderstood intentions
of healing innocence, and
ancient arguments between
right and wrong, male or female
now or never

I am re-minded
to re-member Grace,
to allow this course
a love of miracles
through these human hands;
so my family can taste
a food bearing gift
and be curious about Source

Though the furniture of my life
be rearranged and unfamiliar,
and nothing is as it seems
life is extraordinary
driving me with a will of its own
of certain uncertainty
on the yellow-brick- road to peace

on our way
to the emerald city
we fell asleep in a field of poppies;
when we awoke, there was no time,
the children were calling
it is they, they who are
the truth we seek
the teachable who inherit
the earth, the young
wayshowers-of-the-way,
the mind-benders we prayed for.

I hear myself ask, "So, am I wrong to believe
this is no time for war?"
Her reply is this: "Walk as light steps
upon the body you call mother!
Chief Seattle was clear.
Listen to hear
how near the turning is ."

She turned to go
blending into brightness.
Now, I honestly confess
I hope to recall the rest.
Amen.

(c) 2007

See you in our dreams.

The Tipping Point

2009-04-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

There is a book (perhaps you've read it)
which speaks of colliding stars
of beauty in love
and vows taken

of children born
college degrees earned
a home unfinished
a tender peace warped into chaos

all ease of knowing
turned a family upside down
turned a woman inside out
turned a boy into a man

Each living chapter
writes into the next
realigning margins
and meaning

this story-weaving
a weft of vows broke
each sweet promise left to fray
undone by sacred tears

the years of silent transitions
bear a golden thread
forgiving this forgetting
of wisdom

re-spin a truer cord
recall a friend's unexpected humor
great - full - relief- laughter
well - it is all there

where the heart is
a new book is under contract (are you writing this?)
a wild, weaver-woman, yarns
a vision, given by children

she digs the garden
weeds for growth, her bare hands
tend the orchard of their future
trims the mint, the rosemary, the lavender

from ground-fall apples
she bakes a perfect pie
sweet cinnamon spiced honey
full mouths drip

where children laugh
and sing her a lullaby
under the canopy of stars
of a new moon night.

(c) 2007

See you in our dreams.